


Spray Paint and Watercolors

by mitsukunihaninozuka



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 11:29:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2427071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitsukunihaninozuka/pseuds/mitsukunihaninozuka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is an art student at NYU and has been set what might be the lamest assignment ever. 'Find inspirational street-art, write an enlightening paper and compile a portfolio', where do you find inspirational street-art, that isn't real.....or so he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spray Paint and Watercolors

**Author's Note:**

> Saw way too much graffiti on my New York trip, also my life is destiel, so this happened.

The subway was rocking and racing its way along the tracks, Dean was clutching his backpack to his chest the spray paint was still drying on his fingertips. The blue line A train was racing towards the brownstones in Brooklyn, and his foster home. He had finally completed his last section of his graffiti “Starry Night in Brooklyn”. He was pleased he had just enough time to add in the Brooklyn skyline. He had painted over some idiot’s gang symbol. Teach them to tag one of his buildings.

He finally heard the static filled voice announcing his stop, and he jumped out of the subway. Sam was going to be livid. Dean had left without telling him how long he would be gone for, his little kid brother was quite the mother hen.

Bobby was ridiculously understanding about Dean staying in the house until Sam graduated high school. Keeping a 21 year old hoodlum wasn’t easy, Dean knew, certainly not one who had to tag every building he passed.

Dean was thinking about his last piece as he opened the gate and walked down to the little red door. Their place. “Bobby! I’m home.”

“Boy, where on Earth were you?” came the old man’s gruff reply.

“Truth or fiction?” Dean asked.

“Truth.”

“Well, I was retagging the my building, some idiot sprayed over part of my last piece.” Dean sighed throwing his bag into his room and listening to the cans clink together as it clashed into the hardwood floor.

“You’re going to get shot one day Dean, that, or you’ll get arrested.”

“Dean!” came the cry of his younger brother, Dean was suddenly engulfed in a bear hug from his giant-of-a-brother.

“Sammy, I can’t breathe.” he gasped.

“Dean, where were you?”

“Would you believe me if I said the library?”

The younger Winchester shook his head, “Not for a second.”

“I finished ‘Starry Night in Brooklyn’.” Dean grinned, “Finally.”

Sam grinned, he didn’t approve of his brother’s graffiti, but he loved his brother’s work. This one in particular, it had been sketched a thousand times in the margins of his brother’s notebooks. “I’m so pleased.”

Dean was too, it had been the product of three years of planning. The idea had plagued him since he had been in high school. That damn art teacher, Mrs. Harvelle, and her grand ideas about high schoolers getting some culture.

He sighed, he was never an artist, just some kid with spray paint.

 

Castiel was tired of this course, he didn’t need to look at graffiti to know it wasn’t art, what ever this useless professor was trying to show them was a waste of time. He had wandered all around the city looking for something more profound than “Bitch Owner”, “Moose”, and “Titty Police”. However, it seemed, that his graffiti study was going to have to be vulgar.

None of these tags were an expression of emotion, the idiots just thought it looked cool to have their name scrawled on a building, and they might get some hit out of the danger.

He was crossing to re-enter the subway and go back to his apartment in the slightly shady side of Brooklyn when he saw the paint-layered building to his left. The whole left side was covered with one gigantic sprawling graffiti “Starry Night”, or so he thought, but the closer he looked he saw the Brooklyn Bridge and the whole Brooklyn skyline in the background, the foreground was a monumental version of the very building that was painted on.

It was done in nothing more than spray paint, Castiel wasn’t sure how anyone could mimic Van Gogh’s style in spray paint, this wasn’t graffiti. In the painted version of the building before him, where this mural was sprawled, was the artist’s tag. A huge green and silver interwoven D and W.

Castiel fumbled with his phone and began snapping pictures, this was his study of street art, he had finally found his paper. He walked around the building and found more of the work signed with the green and silver tag. One was of a woman in all black and white, her photo realistic eyes shedding one red tear, and her hair flowing out into a rainbow of colors. One piece sprayed on the door was a tiny child huddled under blankets, bright green eyes staring out from the many black folded around it. The last with the tag had an image of a young man holding a spray can in front of his face, the only part not obscured was his one green eye. Castiel wondered if the child and the young man were the same person. Maybe even the artist?

He was surprised that his feet had carried him down onto the subway, his fingers were frantically typing a message to his roommate. He had to tell Gabriel about this.

 

Dean had his notebook open on his bed and his pencils worked furiously on his next sketch. Hopefully this one wasn’t going to cost him as much in paints, the last one had gone through at least ten cans of blue and black.

He almost fell off of the bed when he bedroom door slammed open, “Dean, I need to talk to you.” It was Sam, of course.

“What do you want bitch?” Dean asked quickly closing his notebook.

“Jerk.” His brother replied before he jumped, uninvited, on to the bed. “I just wanted to tell you that I got accepted today.”

“Accepted?” Dean asked holding his breath. He had been dreading this moment, of course his brilliant brother was going to be accepted somewhere amazing and far away.

“Yeah at NYU.”

Dean released a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding.

“Do you want to go there?” he asked carefully.

“Why would I apply somewhere I didn’t want to go.”

“Alright,” he paused not quite knowing where to go with this, “I’m proud of you Sammy.”

“I know,” the little shit grinned, “I’m awesome.”

“Shut up.” Dean shoved his brother off of the bed and onto the floor, his sketchpad cascading down with him. The abused spine letting all his work fly across the room in every direction.

Dean blushed furiously, “Don’t.” he started, but was cut off as his brother instantly began to look at them.

“Dean,” Sam muttered, “All of this is really good.”

“No it’s not.” Dean’s voice was already an octave higher than normal as he began to fidget uncomfortably.

“I haven’t seen any of your stuff in a while, it had gotten even better. Dean, you have to go to school. You could be the next Van Gogh.” Sam teased.

“I can’t paint for shit.” Dean laughed.

“Yeah, your graffiti sucks.” Sam punched him in the arm and began gathering up some of the other pages and sticking them back into the frayed and tattered notebook.

“Seriously, shut it.” Dean punched his brother back as he grabbed the notebook back.

“Dean, I need to talk about something else with you.”

Oh no, that was a serious face, “Sure thing Sammy.”

“Dean,” Sam chewed his lower lip, “I have a question.”

“Out with it bro.” Dean laid on the floor and watched the fan spin around.

“Why won’t you go to school?”

Dean sat up and looked his brother in the face, “Because I won’t fit in there.”

“Dean,” Sam rolled his eyes, “NYU is the very definition of diversity.”

“And the college boy thinks he’s so sh-mart.” Dean drawled, “Using all those big words to confuse us mere mortals.”

“Whatever Dean.” Sam sighed and reluctantly left the room.

 

It wasn’t until a week later, after his paper was turned in and the assignment long over, that Castiel confessed he was obsessed.

Gabriel said it was unhealthy, and that nothing could ever come of it, but Castiel had been bitten by some bug. He had to find every piece that this artist had ever created. It was hard, and he found himself walking dirty alleys and backwards streets to find some of them, eventually he learned that this artist stuck to huge buildings. Normally the kind that still had something inside of them, like apartments or in warehouses, something with a large empty space.

Castiel also began mapping out the area, this artist had to live in Brooklyn, and be familiar with the subway. Brooklyn, but liked to travel to Manhattan, it was obvious in some of his pieces that he wasn’t much older than Castiel. He must be plugged into the city, he had the heartbeat of a true New Yorker. In fact, Castiel would be surprised if he didn’t have the Brooklyn skyline tattooed somewhere on his body.

Gabriel tried to talk some sense into him, tell him that if he did finally meet the artist he might not like what he would find, he couldn’t even be sure that the artist was a man like he pictured. Castiel never listened.

He would find the man with the green eyes, if it killed him.

 

Dean threw the cap of a can at his brother’s head, “I said look out, you wanted to come and see my new work, well then.”

He had chosen a new building, this one was an apartment building he knew housed a lot of NYU students. Maybe Sammy would move in here eventually, he could always hope, then his brother would live in one of his buildings. He liked that.

Sam sighed, “You said you would work on a portfolio for school.”

“Well, I need more paintings don’t I?” He laughed and tucked the can under his chin as he gripped onto the uneven brick face.

He hadn’t shown Sam the concept for this yet, and he wanted it to be a surprise. With a triumphant laugh he began manically spraying. It was the family Impala, they never drove it, and it spent months at a time parked in the expensive garage. Bobby knew it was Dean’s baby, and Sam knew it too. This was part of Sam’s graduation gift.

He was already done with the black and silver can’s before he started to add color, “Hurry up Dean, I think I see someone.”

“Cop?”

“Nah, looks like some scrawny dude.” Sam said, his southern drawl slipping through his fake Brooklyn accent.

“Never mind then, we’ll give them a show.” Dean said adding in his signature rainbow bursts and swirls from the windows and tail-pipes.

 

Castiel was carrying a huge bag of ‘damn-it-Gabe-I-need-to-eat-too’ food when he turned the corner to enter his building. He saw two boys, one hanging from one arm as he frantically sprayed the wall, while the other seemed to be trying to sound the alarm.

“Damn it Sammy I’m busy.”

“Dean, there is really someone here, get done already.”

The man swinging from the face of his apartment building dug around in the backpack slung over his shoulder for another can. Castiel raced forward, ignoring the crunch of breaking chips and the slosh of fizzing soda. He watched in awe as this boy sprayed the intertwined D and W onto the wheel-well of a photo realistic muscle car.

“You’re him.” he whispered as the bag slipped from his arms.

“Umm, what?” Dean asked dropping to the ground like a cat. “Listen, blue-eyes,” because this man had the wildest blue eyes, “you never saw me here.”

“Don’t scare the guy Dean.” the younger, but much taller, boy sighed.

“Stop saying my name bitch.” This blue-eyed man was staring at him like he was the man in the moon.

“Jerk” Sammy replied.

“No,” Castiel cried holding out a hand to grab Dean, “Don’t go.”

Dean froze in shock, “W-what?”

“I,” Castiel gulped, “I have been studying your work.”

Sammy punched Dean in the shoulder, “Studying your work Van Gogh.”

“Sam, go home.” Dean growled, the younger seemed to take the hint and raced off laughing.

“I’ll see you at the house.”

 

Studied my work? The hell? “Dude, what the hell?” he asked the thin, dark haired, blue eyed man.

“It was an assignment, I had to find some graffiti, I found your ‘Starry Night’. I just didn’t stop looking for your work after the paper was due.” his voice was so unbelievably low, it couldn’t be human. Maybe a God, a sex God, something like that. Dean felt and heard his phone go off, but he ignored it.

“My work.” Dean said slowly.

“Yes, your work, it’s amazing.” Was this blue-eyed pretty boy for real?

“Why are you looking for my work?” Dean asked rubbing his spraypaint freckled hands together. “For a real class?”

“My name is Castiel.” The boy shifted the bag of groceries from one hand to another. “I am an art student at NYU, and I think your work is fantastic.”

Dean blushed, “Dean Winchester,” he saw the a cop approaching the building, “Can I help you?” He grabbed the bag from Castiel and started pushing the man into the building. “You can tell me about your name and shit inside.”

Castiel unlocked the door and let the artist he barely knew into the dorm. “Hold on.” Castiel closed the door just as the cop was staring up in disbelief at the defaced face of the building.

“Fifth floor.” Castiel said punching the button on the elevator, his eyes kept flickering back to the green-eyes that had been haunting him for weeks.

“So, art school.” Dean fidgeted with the back and shifted his weight like he was preparing to run.

“Yes,” the elevator dinged and the reflective doors slid open, being a gentleman, Castiel let the obviously distracted Dean onto the elevator first, “I am studying art at NYU, specifically to become an art-dealer. My family owns a gallery.” He pushed the five button repeatedly.

That snagged the artist’s attention, and he finally locked eyes with Castiel just as the doors closed and they began rocketing to the fifth floor, “An art gallery?”

“Yeah, have you heard of ‘NoVack’?” Castiel figured that a street artist might not have actually known the gallery.

“The only private gallery to fund an installation in Central Park?” Dean asked.

“Yes.” he tried to make the reply sound proud, but Castiel suspected he sounded disappointed.

“My brother is constantly throwing around facts like that, like edgy art places, he wants me to make your dorm part of my portfolio to enter school. I couldn’t. School and art don’t mix.” Dean watched the display above the doors flicker to the number five and the doors to spring open.

“You never took classes?” the Van Gogh study was even more impressive then, did he even know what he had accomplished, copying that style in spraypaint?

“I took a general art class in high school.” Dean pushed out into the hallway, glad to be off of the tiny elevator.

“Room 15,” Castiel muttered, pointing vaguely to his left.

Dean stumbled to the door and waited for it to be opened. "

"That's it?" There were artists that would literally kill to have that kind of raw potential, Castiel might have been one of them, if he wasn't already convinced that his art wasn't worth anything anyway. His destiny was to run the gallery, he had accepted that. He fumbled with his keys, then pushed the door open after an embarrassingly long tussle with his lock. 

Dean whistled softly, "Nice place. Kitchen?" He asked looking around the dorm in awe. 

Castiel motioned with one hand to the kitchen while he looked around anxiously for his roommate, he didn't want to explain Gabriel to Dean, nor did he want to explain Dean to Gabriel. It looked safe. 

"Wow, if I knew dorms were this nice, I would have applied to some swanky place like this way sooner." 

"So you are applying?" Castiel asked confused. 

Dean turned away like he hadn't heard the other man, and walked the groceries into the kitchen, the dorms were really nice. Spacious and well furnished. Dean was impressed. 

"Would you like something to eat?" Castiel asked. 

Dean really didn't hear Castiel speak this time, because he was staring at the huge wall of photographs that was opposite the kitchen island. "Those are mine." Dean's jaw hung open, it was a huge collection of his own work, "Why?" 

Castiel blushed furiously and tried to stand in front of the monstrous college, "My project, like I said, I just." Castiel stammered, "I'm a really good student." 

"I'll say, how did you even find all of it?" 

"I rode the subway a lot." 

"I'll say." 


End file.
